BNP’s Brons admits in-fighting set to destroy party ‘by end of year’

British National Party MEP Andrew Brons has admitted that an internal battle could bring the BNP to ‘an ignominious end before the end of this year’.

Brons made his stark admission of the extent of the BNP’s crisis on his EU website – going public on a non-party site – in a significant signal of the desperate straits the party is in.

Internal war

The BNP has been wracked by an internal war between the fascist party’s leader Nick Griffin and would-be challenger Eddy Butler – as well as becoming mired in financial trouble in recent months.

Yorksire and Humber MEP Brons, who is one of the party’s best known figures, warned the fascists that the infighting had ‘moved on from attack websites to what each side sees as a final confrontation’. He describes how Butler has organised a series of anti-Griffin meetings, which are filmed by BNP ‘security’ before the Buttler supporters are expelled by the BNP. Brons admitted:

'If there is no truce, the Party will come to an ignominious end before the end of this year.'

Longstanding Nazi

Brons is a longstanding Nazi. He began his political career in the National Socialist Movement, a fascist organisation founded in the 1960s on Hitler’s birthday. He was later chair of the National Front, before his reincarnation as a BNP politician in a suit. His handwringing over the fate of the BNP is aimed at bolstering the fascists and marks no departure from their politics.

Antifascists campaigning aginst the BNP in the May elections in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent will be heartened by the disarray and demoralisation laid bare by Brons. There is a real chance of kicking the divided BNP Nazis out of key seats.
EDL threat

There is no room for complacency, however. Brons notes that some disaffected BNP members have left to form splinter groups, while others ‘plan to seek membership of establishment safety valve parties’.

But it is clear that BNP members drifting out of the party are also increasingly moving into and around the English Defence League, the racist street thug movement whose leader “Tommy Robinson” is himself a former BNP member. The BNP’s collapse is likely to add to the drain of former members into the EDL.

Fascist elements in the EDL have already been increasing their influence inside the organisation, with growing signs that they are seeking to “harden up” its members and direct them against other traditional fascist targets, such as trade unionists and socialists as well as ethnic minorities.
Step up

Antifascists will be pleased to see the demise of the BNP. But the growth and direction of the EDL are cause for grave concern.

We need to drive home the BNP’s weakness in the election campaign. But we must also step up campaigning against the EDL.

Unite Against Fascism